6 audiobooks read by Oscar winners and nominees

Oscars season is upon us – did you know that some of the Best Actress and Best Actor nominees narrated Penguin audiobooks? Listen to Olivia Colman, Richard E. Grant and more read aloud from much-loved titles below.

Richard E. Grant in the Penguin studio

20 February 2019

A Ladder to the Sky

Richard E. Grant, nominated for Best Supporting Actor 2019

If you look hard enough, you can find stories pretty much anywhere. They don’t even have to be your own. Or so would-be writer Maurice Swift decides very early on in his career in A Ladder to the Sky.

Stories will make him famous, but they will also make him beg, borrow and steal. They may even make him do worse…

Richard E. Grant is one of a number of narrators in this thrilling masterpiece from John Boyne. Listen to an excerpt below.

Hut 33

Olivia Colman, nominated for Best Actress 2019

Set during World War Two, Hut 33 follows the adventures of a team of codebreakers at Bletchley Park as they work tirelessly to break German codes, matching wits with the fabled Enigma Machine. Unfortunately, they hate each other…

Olivia Colman stars as the formidable Minka alongside a number of other British actors in this hilarious BBC Radio 4 comedy. Listen to an excerpt below.

The Order of Time

Benedict Cumberbatch, nominated for Best Actor 2014

Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. Enlightening and consoling, The Order of Timeshows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time -- and to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves.

Benedict Cumberbatch, a self-professed fan of Carlo Rovelli’s, narrates this award-winning audiobook with lyricism and thoughtfulness. Listen to an excerpt below.

Matilda

Kate Winslet, winner of Best Actress 2009

Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents. Miss Trunchbull is her terrifying headmistress who thinks all her pupils are rotten little stinkers. But Matilda will show these horrible grown-ups that even though she's only small, she's got some very powerful tricks up her sleeve....

Kate Winslet narrates this much-loved story from Roald Dahl. Listen to an excerpt below.

The Hours

Rosamund Pike, nominated for Best Actress 2014

InMichael Cunningham's The Hoursthree separate women, living in different locations and eras, are linked by their passion for Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. As they each live through a Tuesday in June, their thoughts and experiences mirror each other and become interwoven.

This audiobook won Gold or Best Drama in the New York Festivals Radio Awards 2018, and Oscar nominee Rosamund Pike stars as Clarissa, alongside Fenella Woolgar as Virginia Woolf and Teresa Gallagher as Laura in this emotional dramatisation of Michael Cunningham’s novel. Listen to an excerpt:

Go Set A Watchman

Reese Witherspoon, nominated for Best Actress 2014

Go Set a Watchmanis the world-renowned author Harper Lee’s second novel, published posthumously, was narrated by Oscar nominee Reese Witherspoon.

In it, Scout has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus. She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand both her father's attitude toward society and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.